


january first, two thousand and sixteen.

by FreezingKaiju



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Persona 5, Ranma 1/2, Un-Go, Zombieland Saga (Anime), 地獄先生ぬ〜べ〜 | Jigoku Sensei Nuubee | Hell Teacher Nube (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Un-Go Fusion, Crossover, Experimental Style, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, New Years, Post-Third Impact, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27535522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingKaiju/pseuds/FreezingKaiju
Summary: on january first, two thousand and sixteen, the world does and does not end.third impact happens, but it doesn't.the angels existed, and never did.the war just ended, and never happened.some people celebrate the war's end, and the new year.some wake up with the world they knew gone in an instant.it's a new day.wake up.
Kudos: 15





	1. [12:01 AM. HOSOKAWA MIKI.]

**Author's Note:**

> (For the sake of navigation, chapter 1 is hell teacher nube, chapter 2 is Ranma, chapter 3 is persona 5, chapters 4-7 are Evangelion, and chapter 8 is Zombieland Saga)

...

..

.

On some level, the fact Shuichi’s New Years parties always included their elementary school homeroom teacher was weird.

Lots of things about the old classmates were weird, though.

Hiroshi was as jocky as ever, despite the demon that tried to devour his heart. He stopped trying to get drafted, put his passion into sports and playlists.

Kyoko veered away now from her time-travel housewife future, her style a Harajuku mishmash but her dreams still aimed at teaching.

Shuichi had only stepped up his bowler-esque style and added a cape, but the stars stole his heart ever since that alien ghost encounter and now he dreamed of astronomy.

Makoto was still a Featherman fan as ever and still kinda terrified, even of your garden-variety kappa, but he channeled his personality now into theater, and nowadays talked about acting.

Katsuya’s now a graffiti artist; ever since Nube pulled his soul from the thirteenth-step delinquent vortex, he got hit by something of an artist’s bug. Paint, sketch, warriorcats collaboration. Maybe he’d be a mangaka someday.

Nube-sensei himself was engaged now, but still teaching elementary, still a hobbyist exorcist, still a pillar of the community whether he liked it or not. 

They were still missing family. Still healing old wounds. Still goofing around.

But the war was done.

The war was done and gone, what parents and siblings left alive were coming home, the draft couldn’t loom overhead anymore.

It never touched Doumori.

Miki thanked the stars above, the demons below, and the gods and youkai between for that.

The night was a whirl of words, of promises, of tears. Food too, courtesy of Shuichi’s family; he choked, while he informed them that the cake wasn’t the best, his brother’s was better and he’d be coming home soon. 

The wind was a eulogy sung with a smile. The yokai, the demons, the ghosts, they must have been celebrating too. 

Things felt off, but they felt alive.

Nūbē cut the cake with his hand. Showoff.

Her neck itched.

She kept talking.

Everyone else was happy. Her family was happy.

Papa was coming home.

So Miki smiled for them.


	2. [12:30 AM. HIBIKI RYOGA.]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a thoroughly lost soul wanders the streets

Tokyo.

Ryoga thought about checking his map, then decided against it. 

The snow’d ruin it.

He can’t read a map for his life, anyway.

But he’s in Tokyo. 

Last he heard, Saotome was in Tokyo.

So he’s close. After months and months, he’s finally getting close.

Close enough to punch out that guy’s skull.

He walks by a takoyaki vendor, pauses, stops to check if he can afford anything. 

Enough to tide him over. Enough is the key.

Wandering would end it all, so he waits, says nothing. 

Lets the snow pile on his head, tells himself it’s endurance training.

If nothing else, he can endure.

When his meal’s ready, the slow snowfall on his hands turn to steam. He eats fast, thanks the vendor. Like his mother taught him.

The warmth doesn’t last.

Without a direction, Ryoga manages to still set off in the wrong one.

He spends another hour, two, walking til his legs are numb, til his clothes don’t matter anymore, til he’s colder than he’s ever been. 

Tent. Setting up a tent. Ryoga’s focus turns to finding somewhere clean, somewhere warmish to make camp. Another hour awake and freezing. He’ll endure.

Ranma Saotome...nah. Nah,  _ ugh _ . 

Ryoga didn’t want to fight Ranma yet. Not here. Not now.

He needed... he needed...

Safety.

Warmth.

Home.

It’s a lost cause, especially now.

And even if he did, it’d be empty.

But Ryoga Hibiki wished he could find his way home. 


	3. [1:03 AM. OKUMURA HARU.]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a high-society party going on much too long; a battered heiress's lament.

A dance familiar, a dance rehearsed,

Red wine in glasses, lips open or pursed.

Hand held in hand with a man hardly known,

He speaks to me nothing, and I am alone.

Father’s made quite clear that all of my health,

Hinges on the hold of his so precious wealth.

Life’s shattered staircase, must waltz my way up it,

Thus is the dance of subservient puppets.


	4. [6:00 AM. AYANAMI REI.]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> many bodies to choose from but it was not much of a choice

She shouldn’t be alive.

More of that liquid, not LCL but something else, dripped from her. She needed something, something to clean, something—

Paper towels. Hospital gown, another for layers. They will have to do. An abomination is one thing, a slimy abomination is quite another.

It was not a funny assessment. But Rei’s options for levity numbered zero, as ever.

IV bag. Tube. Duct tape. Jury-rigging, a term Rei read once yet decided she would like to see more. 

The others in the tubes showed none of her initiative to escape. Perhaps Rei’s soul had chosen the best body of the selection. More likely just the closest to the door.

She shouldn’t be alive. But here she was. 

Third Impact was over.

But in this new reality, Rei remained.

What horrible world could this be, that would permit Rei Ayanami to fester inside it? 

The light glinted off something on the desk’s surface. Rei picked it up.

Glasses. 

_ Those  _ glasses.

As her first act in the new reality, Rei will give the glasses a proper send-off.

If found, they will be mangled beyond repair. 

Rei Ayanami pushes open the door and steps unwelcome into the morning sun.


	5. [8:02 AM. ASUKA LANGLEY SORYU!]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the second child did not die.

Asuka Langley Soryu closed her eyes on the presence of her mother, in the glory of victory, in the blood of the Mass Produced EVAs, with a heart soaring with the sense that her life had meaning.

She was a pilot!

A pilot to the end, to the very last!

And then she opened her eyes.

To a ceiling. 

To a room decorated by someone else; looked cool, but this shit was all-new.

To a bed despite being in her plugsuit. A weird rectangle on her bedside table. Another pair of hairclips next to them, wrong ones. 

To a small pile of presents at her feet. Was it her birthday yet? Did someone remember?

Her eyes sting. Her throat aches. She groans something in her mother tongue.

It’s cold.  _ Mein Gott _ , is it cold. Air conditioning must be cranked.

Asuka shudders up, reaches to the window, clicks open the lock. 

Unimaginable cold greets her like a fist to the face.

What the fuck. What is happening. 

Asuka does what she always does to something terrifying; she lunges.

Hands slam on the windowsill, head sticks out to stare at...something. Not rain, colder, white and soft-looking. An angel? Some sort of spore? Ice cream from the fucking sky?

It feels wrong. Strange. Something that can’t fucking happen.

Asuka watches the world snow for the very first time.


	6. [10:15 AM. KAJI RYOJI.]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a watermelon field and something else.

A dead man lays in his field. 

He died in suit and tie, among orange, in the eye of one beloved.

A dead man lays in the snow.

His body cocooned in a futon, in heating pads, staving off the cold.

A dead man lays beside a child.

He never spoke to her, but red eyes know, in passing, in complicity.

A dead man blinks.


	7. [12:21 PM. AKAGI RITSUKO.]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ritsuko wakes up in someone’s arms.

You wake up in someone’s grasp.

Panic sets in like an old loathsome friend.

Bile rises in your throat as you freeze in place as you wonder in fear.

You shot him.

You shot him dead.

You shot him you watched him fall he _can’t be here._

His doll, you shot her too. 

Or did you? 

Did you take the chance to finish off his last horrible creation?

Did you take pity on his second victim, on the thing that looked so much like a child?

You don’t remember.

Something snores, the person behind you the bastard holding you in his grasp.

You realize something.

Gendo Ikari does not snore.

You wonder if that thought is a lie, wishful thinking, denial. 

A shift in arms, a move to rotate yourself enough to take stock and hope to whatever is out there that you are not with him.

It’s agonizing. 

Careful.

Slow.

You know not to wake something as dangerous as him.

Grit your teeth. Open your eyes.

You find yourself in the arms of Lieutenant Maya Ibuki.

.

..

...

“Oh.”

“Oh this is _fantastic._ ”

Incomprehensible, but fantastic.

Not happening, not remotely, a fantasy you will wake up from at any moment.

But fantastic.

Your eyes hydrate themselves for a moment, then spill over.

And you begin to laugh.

A cackle, hoarse and unpracticed, bright as dawn and uncontrollable.

You don’t want to control it.

You’ve never been one for raw belief, but somehow you know he’s dead.

He’s dead.

He’s _dead._

HE’S DEAD!

Your laughter shakes the bed, rattles the windows, reverberates through your core.  
  
He's dead. You are with her. You are in her arms.

Congratulations!


	8. [3:10 PM. KATSURAGI MISATO.]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> misato is a late riser

you wake up hungover, as always, as ever, if you woke up sober it’d be a miracle, which it sort of is, given the angels, given that timer counting down, given everything you remember of the past ~~day month year life~~ week you should expect miracles, hell the angels are miracles, in some sicko’s way, but that’s a hypocrite’s thoughts since you work for a sicko, you know what he’s done now, you’ve b ~~led out on the floor died alone or did you were you there or were you dead did you see it to the end~~ heard ritsuko talk about it, though did you listen did you really listen, did you ever listen to anyone aside from kaji, did you even listen to him or has your life been the 24/7 katsuragi radio show guest starring a penguin, you didn’t listen to ~~asuka~~ shinji, where are they anyway, you saw them in the end...

...the end...

you shoot out of bed, grab for a gun that’s not there, grab some kind of rectangle instead, look at it, looks like a computer screen, new NERV technology or new tech in general some sort of delivery but it looks  like a phone used and worn and like you’ve thrown it against a wall before, is this yours, you click a button on it and a screen appears with a slick car in the background and you wonder how it did that and you wonder how to interact with this but it isn’t the time so you put it aside and as you do you hear something  _ bark _ , something pound its way over and you look to your left and discover a **dog** , a dog in your apartment, and you stare at the dog wondering whose where how why and you see its collar its collar **his collar** the dog is wearing pen-pen’s collar and it fits perfectly  ~~ did the dog eat pen-pen ~~ , the dog looks like him, is the dog pen-pen, has pen-pen become a dog, you wonder and raise your voice and call to your penguin and the dog barks in response and you laugh now because what else can you do, because your penguin is a dog, because there’s some weird rectangle on your bedside table, because you’re alive and well and the kids 

THE

**KIDS**

**you forgot about the kids** so you scramble to your feet and nearly trip you rush down the hallway towards shinji’s room hoping he’s alive and safe and just as disoriented as you but when you open the door to his room it’s different, things have changed, new things are there, old things are gone, but that doesnt matter the one-day redecoration doesn’t matter as much as the fact that his bed, his bed, oh god shinji’s bed, there’s a scorchmark on his bed shaped 

exactly

like

him

so you scream as you do as is your legal right to scream your fucking head off on whatever day this is in your own fucking apartment and damn the consequences, you’re a captain or a major or a lieutenant colonel, what was your rank again, maybe none, maybe this’ll get you discharged, hello nonexistent veteran benefits and a lifetime of trauma, but that’s if you go the easy way the healthy way the responsible way but your name is misato katsuragi and at your funeral if anyone calls you responsible healthy or easy you will rise from your grave and throttle them, and then you remember that you are the legal caretaker of two entire children and that asuka does in fact exist 

so you run to her room nearly tripping over cans and you kick open the door and see ~~red see blood see the mass produced evas and their gnashing teeth tearing open her insides~~ her standing there and she shouts and you scream but she’s there she’s there you’re not the world’s greatest failure you could have fucked up more ~~you already fucked up irreperably~~ and she says something but you don’t quite hear it because her window’s open and and and what the fuck is that **what the fuck is that** it’s

**it’s**

it’s snowing outside.

just like when you were young.


	9. [8:30 PM. KONNO JUNKO.]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a eulogy for one who won't be rising that new years at all

The Showa era lasted three score and three

Years, but she somehow defined to a T,

What was an idol, what made her the best?

She became for some years the true idoldom test.

Vibrant her voice, but preferred a grey hue,

She was barely nineteen, now she’d be fifty-two.

The oldies station will still carry her tune,

It played at midnight, though she died in the noon.

New planes to Kyushu will take off the same,

Idols will always remember her name.

They buried her whole, as whole as they may.

Sewn, patched and embalmed, as dead as the day.

Brief respects paid, by a sunglassed knave,

A Rubik’s Cube left, as a gift to her grave.

He wandered away, said a dangerous thing:

“I’ll fix it someday. You’ll rise up and sing.”

**Author's Note:**

> (a prequel to an upcoming au.)  
> (Un-Go is only the setting here, sadly.)  
> (each chapter is in a different character's perspective.)  
> (the character choice will become clear later on.)  
> (also in terms of where everyone is in their timeline: this is 5 years after Hell Teacher Nube, 1 year before Persona 5 and Ranma 1/2, and 2 years before Zombieland Saga and Un-Go.)


End file.
